Rocstor Rocpro 850 - Introduction to Formatting; File Allocation Table (FAT) and FAT 32


42ROCSTOR‐ROCPRO850usermanual

Introductions:Formatting

FileAllocationTable(FAT)
FATisafilesystemdevelopedbyMicrosoftforMS‐DOSandistheprimaryfilesystemfor
consumerversionsofMicrosoftWindows.

TheFATfilesystemisrelativelyuncomplicatedandissupportedbyvirtuallyallexisting
operatingsystemsforpersonalcomputers.Thismakesitanidealformatforharddrivesand
otherstoragedevicesandaconvenientwayofsharingdatabetweendisparateoperating
systemsinstalledonthesamecomputer(adualbootenvironment).

FAT32isadiskformattingschemewhichallowsamaximumfilesizeof4GB.Largerfiles
requireanotherformattingtypesuchasHFS+orNTFS.


Microsoft’sScan‐Diskutility,includedwithWindows95/98,placesavolumelimitof127.53
gigabytes.

FAT32wasintroducedwithWindows95OSR2.Windows98introducedautilitytoconvert
existingharddisksfromFAT16toFAT32withoutlossofdata.IntheNTline,nativesupportfor
FAT32arrivedinWindows2000.

Windows2000andWindowsXPcanreadandwritetoFAT32filesystemsofanysize,butthe
formatprogramincludedinWindows2000andhighercanonlycreateFAT32file systemsof32
GBorless.Thislimitationisbydesignandwasimposedbecausemanytasksonverylarge
FAT32filesbecomeslowandinefficientwhenfilesystemsexceed32GB.Thislimitationcanbe
bypassedwhenusingtheWindowscommandlineFormatutilityorbyusingthird‐party
formattingutilities.

Themaximumpossiblesizeforafileon
aFAT32volumeis4GBminus1byte.Videocapture
andeditingapplicationsandsomeothersoftwarecaneasilyexceedthislimit.

Untilmid‐2006,thosewhorundualbootsystemsorwhomoveexternaldatadrivesbetween
computerswithdifferentoperatingsystemshadlittlechoicebuttostickwithFAT32.Since
then,fullsupportforNTFShasbecomeavailableinLinuxandmanyotheroperatingsystems,by
installingtheFUSElibrary(onLinux)togetherwiththeNTFS‐3Gapplication.Dataexchangeis
alsopossiblebetweenWindowsandLinuxbyusingtheLinux‐nativeext2orext3filesystems
through
theuseofexternaldriversforWindows,suchasext2IFS.However,Windowscannot
bootfromext2orext3partitions.





